KC BeerFest '09

I wasn't going to do a write up on the beerfest because everyone already has, but I need to state my opinions in hopes that they get heard. I had a feeling this festival was going to be not my type of beer event, but I had to go see what it was all about for myself. This event was held at the top of the parking garage at Legends. Not a bad idea in case the ground was wet. We were greeted with a KC BeerFest snifter glass that was pretty cool and a band that was, eh, good enough. I turned the corner and walked right up to Sam Adams area that had their Imperial Series. I am a big fan of that stuff and figured an Imperial Stout was a great way to start off the day! I made my way over to Free State which had a great booth. I tried the Eccentricity which was explained as a barrel aged ale that was blended to perfection. Then I asked what style they were going for and they just said it's a style of it's own. Hm...

From there I found tons and tons of crappy beer you can buy in any liquor store and then all of a sudden I realized that every booth except for Boulevard's Nuttsack Ale and Free State booth everything there was something you could just go to the liquor store and get. But it was kind of cool to see almost 250 different beers in one spot.

None of the volunteers knew about the beer. Don't get me wrong, I am happy that these volunteers were pouring, but I just feel like having some conversation about it. Instead I felt like I was to move out of the way so this other guy can get his drink on. Then it became very crowded. Hundreds of people swarming BMC booths and taking down the Corona, the Smirnoff Ice and the Bud American Ale. Dude, buddy, homey!

The beerfest was to last from 1-5. At 4 most tables were being cleared off and the lines became very long for the people who actually brought kegs. A big thanks to Boulevard, Schlafly and Free State for holding down the fort. The only spots besides High Noon that actually had their own staff pouring.

Closer to 5 people started swarming to the edge of the parking garage to gawk at some white-trashiness fight. We saw two bloody fights ensue and people getting arrested. The whole time I was thinking about Parkville's Microfest and how awesome and laid back it is.

- picture taken from pitch.com

Later that night the Mizzou game was on and what better time to keep drinking. Okay maybe that was a bad idea. Bryan came over and he brought back his collection from Florida: 13th Anniv. Stone, Cigar City Bolita Brown, Terrapin Rye squared, Smuttynose IPA, and a couple others. As a night cap I popped my Southern Tier Cuvee. WOW, what a day of drinking! Time to take a long break from drinking that much.

Tripel Hose

One of the brews in my ever-changing Top 5 list has been Schlafly's Tripel. While my tongue hasn't been calibrated as a BJCP judge or a brewing QC personnel I do know what I like. I view the Schlafly Tripel as Americanized Chinese food, meaning that the style has been tainted by American characteristics (and I like it!). I feel that this version is a bit more sugary, slightly higher in IBU's and a hint more chewy than, let's say, a La Fin Du Monde. Let's just say it's damn good and in my opinion under-rated.

As a beginner home brewer I hadn't felt I was ready to break off and do my own variables in brews so I wanted to semi-clone the Schlafly brew. I got a hold of Stephen Hale at Schlafly who guided me through the beer. I won't be posting my ingredients on here for the integrity of Schlafly, but I will say that the key was in the yeast. And boy did this yeast work. The name "Tripel Hose" came about because I roasted my garden hose on my burner when I was about to chill the wort. One of the many things you can do wrong when drinking while home brewing.

I listened to a show on the brewing network with Jamil about Tripels and the candy sugars. It was suggested that you let the yeast work on the more complicated sugars from the malts first then once attenuation starts to slow down, dump in the candy sugars. He equated to filling up too fast on the junk food and not having any of the healthy food because you're too full. The yeast sure did it's job finishing out with a Specific Gravity of 1.009 meaning I had 91% apparent attenuation which is crazy. I have heard of a lot of tripels getting around 95% attenuation and mine almost got there. I am very sad to say that I did not get an original gravity so I can only roughly estimate the abv. However with a 70% brewhouse efficiency I would estimate a range from 11.5-12% abv whereas Schlafly's is about 10%. This is far too high to be judged properly in the Tripel category where BJCP looks for 7.5-9%, but you know what, I don't care. This beer is mighty tasty. It is a bit dry, but the heavier malt backbone gives a good balance as long as their is high carbonation. Leave it to us Americans to bastardize recipes and double up on ingredients.

Because I did not get an original gravity reading, the good people at Boulevard took a sample to get an Ethanol spike using their chromatography machine (GC). While I actually never got a reading for my ABV, I did get a ton more and I was very happy with my results. While some were marked as high, sometimes they are acceptable for a Belgian-Styled brew. It was also ran through a 7 person tasting panel and received a 6.8 rating which is right in line with many commercial brews.

• Acetaldehyde (ppm) - 25.80177
• Diacetyl (ppb) - 12.38845
• DMS (ppb) - 136.67268
• Ethyl Acetate (ppm) - 40.55405
• Ethyl Butyrate (ppb) - 1527.58567
• Isoamyl Acetate (ppb) - 3002.76315
• Isoamyl Alcohol (ppm) - 256.3184
• Ethyl Hexanoate (ppb) - 186.61994